


Metathesiophobia

by Syntax



Series: Writings of Xarxes [4]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Meta Esaay, Nonfiction, Solstheim, crossposted from tumblr: thespleenoflorkhan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 04:08:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18045182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syntax/pseuds/Syntax
Summary: "I remember seeing someone mention that Miraak would know Solstheim like the back of his hand since he used to rule it back in the day.""Let me offer an alternative that is much more realistic—"





	Metathesiophobia

**Author's Note:**

> debated putting this up here but figured what the hell i spent an hour writing it

The only thing that tells Miraak he’s on Solstheim, however he gets there, is that his temple is still his temple, and there are still like half a dozen dragon skeletons lying haphazardly around it.  He hasn’t been to this land in 4500~ years.  Do you know what has changed in 4500~ years?

Cities have risen, fallen, and risen again.  Do you think the temples served empty land?  There would have been towns around them filled with farmers and workers and travelers all wanting to see the temple and hear the sermons and make use of whatever facilities they offered.  There was no Raven Rock.  There was no Frostmoth.  There was no Skaal.  Whatever people lived on Solstheim in Miraak’s time are there no more, and their civilization is gone with them.

Sea levels ebb and wave, and change as the land erodes.  Have you ever seen pictures of what the Florida coastline looked like when Ponce De Leon arrived with his men in the 1500′s?  While it still resembles the shape it has today, there are a few differences.  Even Solstheim is different.  Chunks of the shores seen in Bloodmoon are missing, while Mortrag Glacier is a shadow of its former self.  What chunks were missing in Bloodmoon’s time?  In Tiber Septim’s Time?  What might the shores of Solstheim looked like once, if Skaal legends are true and the land only became an island after Miraak had played his hand?

Mountains shrink and shift as the wind and heat wear them down, the the land itself forces them up.  The Icy peaks of the Moesring have changed.  They’re taller now than they were in the Third Era, yet other differences still remain.  The flowers that once grew at their peak are missing in Dragonborn.  The peaks and valleys between them are more defined.  Has Solstheim experienced great tectonic activity in the past 200 years?  Is it related to the eruption?  If the mountains were so much shorter so long ago, where they even present at all in Miraak’s time?

Above all else, the Eruption of Red Mountain has drastically changed the land.  Half of Solstheim is covered in ash.  Native wildlife from Vvardenfell, plants and animals both, are invading the island and competing with natural species.  Through quakes or landslides or whatever other means, several caves and locations in Solstheim that the Nerevarine had passed through are inaccessible to the Last Dragonborn.  Even beyond that, how long ago was Vahlok’s tomb buried that its entraceway is so far below the earth?  Solstheim is different even to visitors who saw it merely 200 years ago—how different is it to one who saw it 4500+ years ago?

Miraak does not arrive on Solstheim and see a place that he can navigate as well as he can surely walk.

Miraak arrives on Solstheim and sees a place that is as alien to him as he is to it, and finds himself in a world where even the land itself has forgotten him.


End file.
